Interestingly, Debbie Brubaker is an avid volunteer. She missed Thanksgiving with her family, because she was helping victims of Hurricane Sandy.
“I spent two weeks in New Jersey,” she said. “I like to help people. I also volunteer at the nursing homes, group homes and started playing the flute for hospice at the VA hospital.”
Now, the couple and their son, Travis, are staying in a hotel. Debbie, 50, runs a grooming and boarding facility from the home. The business had to be shut down after the fire. Jon, 60, works as a concrete finisher. The family also includes children Ian, 31, and Amanda, 30, and four grandchildren.
Several fundraisers have been planned on the family’s behalf. A Jan. 13 event raised $2,700.
The Brubakers will put the funds toward their new home.
“It’s amazing. I never expected anything like this would happen,” Debbie Brubaker said. “It is very humbling. I’m a giver; to receive like this is a lesson I have to learn. It’s overwhelming; I don’t know the words for it.”
The couple is working with insurance to rebuild at the same location.
“We want to rebuild there because it is my husband’s family’s farm,” Debbie Brubaker said. “It has been in the family since the 1840s.”
They are also rebuilding their family; they have adopted two kittens from Florida.
“We’re doing all right. Like the phoenix will we rise from the ashes,” Debbie Brubaker said.
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